This book is proof that composers, whether they are compatriots or live far apart, whether they belong to the same generation or are (grand)parents and (grand)children in the closely knit family of creative musicians, listen to each other. It is as simple as that.

Before submitting the manuscript in 1986 to Editio Musica Budapest, the Hungarian state music publisher where my job was the promotion of contemporary Hungarian composers, I made an attempt at a graphic demonstration of the intricate web of interrelationships: who has influenced whom, what influences reach over several generations, creating a family tree, so to speak, of composers or of compositions. Needless to say, I failed, probably not just because of lacking talent in the visual arts.

The genealogical table of contemporary music is so complex as to defy illustration. I hope these interviews will nevertheless help the reader to trace creative influences over the decades. In addition, the composers’ statements should give an idea of the working of their minds within the areas defined by the questions. (For the three questions, please see the preface to the Hungarian edition.)

This book, then, is about musical genealogy and aspects of the psychology of musical creativity.

In addition, the interviews highlight the role of politics in the development (or stagnation) of the arts such as music; they demonstrate the resourcefulness of those deprived of but hungry for information, in a successful effort to find loopholes; they also highlight the tremendous significance of the radio as a provider of inspiration. Nowadays when radio stations are starved of financial resources and tend to ignore minority interests (which contemporary music no doubt represents), the statements of many composers regarding the fundamental role music broadcasts have played in their lives ought to make editors stop to ponder whether they are doing the right thing.

Now, close to the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, with many of the composers dead, the answers to the three questions have acquired the status of documents of the recent past. I have nevertheless decided to pare down the number of interviews originally published in Hungarian from eighty-two to sixty-one. I have left out those whose names and music would not be known on an international scale and whose replies contained no element of novelty which would have added to the picture.